


Wandering Diner

by wheel_pen



Series: Wandering [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Wandering (wheel_pen)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8353396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: Jason (Jeremy Renner) has lived a solitary existence, except for his helper Phil, in a diner and its endless backrooms that travel through time and space, allowing him to visit distant cities. However, now he’s met single mom Rachel (Rachel Weisz) and her two kids, and wants them to join him in his travels. An original story with shades of Bourne Legacy, Avengers, and Unusuals. This story is unfinished.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that's just how I do things. I hope you enjoy this original story, which was inspired by many different things.

 

Jason hugged Rachel close, mindful of the black eye and other bruises. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured, stroking her long, curly hair. It was _not_ okay, of course; but he had a plan to make it better. “Come live here,” he told her—maybe it seemed an impulsive offer to her, but he’d been thinking it over for a while. “Shh, I can take care of you, and the kids. Bring them here, you’ll be safe, I promise. We’re leaving here in just a couple days anyway.”

Rachel sniffled slightly, starting to automatically shake her head before she thought, really thought, about the idea. “Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” Jason told her. He was not concerned by this. “I never know where I’m going to end up. A city somewhere, probably in the US but we’ve landed in other countries before.” He brushed her hair back from her face gently. “He won’t find you. And even if he does, he can’t get in, we’re safe inside the diner. And then we’ll disappear again.”

It was such a huge thing to contemplate for her, a change of great magnitude when all her life she’d tried to just accept whatever happened, whatever was given to her. Look how well that had worked out.

“You’ll all be safe here,” Jason repeated. “I’ll take care of you. And—if later you decide you want to leave, you can walk back out the door, in a new place.”

Rachel hugged him wordlessly, wondering if she had the strength to agree, and to make it happen once she left this building. She had to _try_ , if not for herself then for her kids, because they had seen enough bad things already.

“Shh, shh, it’ll be okay,” Jason told her again. His lips brushed her cheek, innocently at first, then moved to her own lips. That was also something he’d been thinking about for a while.

She reacted with surprise and he drew back quickly. “Sorry,” he sputtered, cursing himself for pushing that little bit more than was necessary. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I just wanted to—“ Rachel was still staring at him. “I like you,” he finally told her simply. “A lot.”

Understanding registered on her features. “Oh! I just thought—you and Phil—“

Now it was Jason’s turn to be surprised. “What? No! We’re just—“ Roommates seemed ridiculous somehow. “—friends, that’s all—“

“Oh.” Now Rachel smiled a little bit.

Jason took that as encouragement but didn’t want her to feel pressured. “But if you come to live here, we don’t have to—I mean, that’s not part of the deal,” he tried to say firmly. “Come live here with me. And Phil. And we can just be friends if you want”—though he would have a difficult time obeying that in his mind.

Rachel put her hands on his chest tentatively, smiling up at him warmly. Then she leaned in and kissed him herself, lightly but with vast potential. “I like you, too,” she told him. “A lot.”

He couldn’t stop the grin from flashing across his face, nor did he want to. “So you’ll come here to stay?” he pressed. “With the kids?” She nodded finally and he hugged her tight, letting go instantly when he felt her tense up. “Sorry, sorry,” he assured her. “You’ll feel better once you’re staying here, I don’t know why, but—well, I don’t know _why_ for any of it,” he admitted. “But things will be so much better with you and the kids here. We’ll have so much fun. We can write and draw and make music all day long, and see all kinds of beautiful things in the world—“

He didn’t really have to sell her on it. Even if she had no idea what it would be like in the future, she knew what it had been like so far—safe and warm and creative and magical. Even if it couldn’t sustain that high level, she knew it would be a better situation than she’d ever had before.

“When can we—“ Rachel started to ask.

“Now. Right away,” Jason insisted. “I’ll drive you home and we can pack up now, get the kids as soon as they come home from school. Take them _out_ of school.” He paused suddenly. “Do you think they’ll be—okay with it?” he asked her.

Jason’s hesitation surprised her. “Of course!” Rachel replied. “They love it here, they like being with you so much—“

“It’s just so sudden, I don’t want them to feel like they’re being forced into anything—“

Rachel smiled, thinking he was sweet to worry about it. “They’ll be thrilled,” she assured him, adding soberly, “They’ve had to move on short notice before, and not to a nice place like this.”

Jason took her word for it. “Okay. Let me just tell Phil—well, I’m sure he already knows,” he predicted dryly. “Then we’ll go.” Rachel nodded and he left her standing alone in the small diner as he ducked into the back.

The back rooms were more extensive than one would think; that was the point, of course. But Jason didn’t have to wait long before Phil popped up, his bland smile slightly more genuine today. “Phil! Rachel and the kids are moving in with us!” He tried to temper his excitement. “Is that okay?” A little late to ask, he supposed.

“Yes, it’s okay,” Phil assured him in his usual mild way.

“It’s not going to mess anything up?”

Phil shook his head. “No. In fact, I think it will help. More creative energy equals more power.”

“Whatever you say, Phil.” Jason would have to defer to his expertise on that subject. “I was going to take the car and drive Rachel home, pack up, bring the kids back by this evening. This afternoon,” he corrected excitedly. “Um, they’ll all need rooms,” Jason went on, trying to run through all the details in his head. “Do we have enough food? The kids will bring some clothes with them, but—“

A slight raise of Phil’s eyebrow stopped his babbling. “I’ll prepare the rooms,” he promised. “When you return I’ll assess the supplies and decide if I need to obtain more before we leave. We still have over forty-eight hours.”

Jason nodded. “What about Chuck?” he asked soberly. “I mean, he might follow us here—“

“We’re perfectly safe inside the structure,” Phil assured him. “And even if he decides to camp out on the doorstep, I should be able to go out for supplies if necessary. You, Rachel, and the kids should all stay inside, though,” he added warningly.

“Right, of course,” Jason agreed. “Once we’re in we’ll probably stay in until we take off.”

“You should get going,” Phil advised.

“Right, thanks.” Jason squeezed his shoulder then let loose a giddy grin before departing. He stuck his head around the doorway to the diner, signaling to Rachel, and she joined him quickly. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he assured her as they walked down the short hallway. It was lined with doors, three on each side and one on the end. Jason opened one, revealing the small garage with the car; but it wasn’t the door Rachel had been expecting.

“This is going to take some getting used to,” she anticipated as they both got into the car. It was a vintage model from the mid-‘70s but looked brand-new, preserved in this den of science fiction since it _had_ been brand-new and Jason had first started his odyssey. He’d been alone since then, except for Phil; no one had ever been right to join them before Rachel, to make him feel that there was an absence in his life that only she could fill. And the kids! Jason loved kids, he loved _these_ kids, and just thinking about having them near for his travels brought the unstoppable grin back to his face as he pulled out of the garage onto the side street.

“It’ll be great,” he told her. “You’ll love it. I don’t know exactly how it will work,” he admitted, “but Phil says it will be fine. He’s getting rooms ready for everyone. Oh, don’t be disappointed if they’re plain, kind of industrial at first,” he warned as they drove along. “All the new rooms start out that way. And, I guess I kind of like it, because sometimes even the _old_ rooms are kind of industrial”—Rachel had noticed that—“but I’m sure it can be changed, it might just take a little time.”

“It’ll be great,” Rachel responded, echoing his words. She was sure it _would_ be great. But it was still daunting to think about, so tempting to let the doubt creep in, the urge to just keep things the way they were now. She fought against it as they spun through the early afternoon traffic, trying to focus on the logistics of what needed to be done, needed to be packed.

“The car is magical,” Jason told her suddenly. “Don’t know if you—anyway, we can fit everything into it. Don’t worry about that.”

“Oh.” Well, that changed things a bit. “I don’t know if I have many boxes,” she admitted. “We may be carrying things out in trash bags. G-d, I hate that, it’s so—“

“Trashy?” Jason guessed, with some amusement. “I don’t care. You’re going someplace better. And Phil will unpack it all when we get home. That’s what he _does_.”

He had tried to explain to her what he knew of how things worked, which seemed embarrassingly little in the face of her sensible questions; he was content to know that it _did_ work. Phil was the captain of the ship, he felt, in which he was a passenger, taking care of the details while Jason enjoyed himself. Sometimes that didn’t seem like a fair exchange, but Phil was quick to say he saw it differently, that it was Jason’s creativity that drove the enterprise, and Phil merely steered.

Phil was not—an ordinary person, like Jason was. Had been, anyway. Phil was always something different, intimately connected to the habitat they now occupied, and Jason was the messy human energy.

And now Rachel and the kids would be joining him. It seemed so ridiculous, awful even, that he had waited this long—had _had_ to wait this long—for someone else to join him, the years before seeming faintly wasted. But Jason didn’t want to think that way right now; he wanted to look forward to the future instead.

Jason pulled the car up in front of Rachel’s brownstone, fortuitously finding a good parking spot. It was a decent neighborhood for the income level and most people were at work right now. They both hesitated before getting out of the car. “You ready?” Jason asked her.

She nodded with determination. “Let’s do it.”

Her apartment was on the third floor, a little two-bedroom with no frills. The kids each had their own room; nominally Rachel shared seven-year-old Emily’s room, keeping her clothes in the girl’s closet and chest of drawers, but she slept on the couch at night. It seemed a little horrible to Jason, but after all, why waste the couch, Rachel pointed out—no one else was using it at night. And honestly, it wasn’t like Rachel was bringing home any ‘guests’ and needed a private bedroom for them. This was actually the best place she’d lived in yet, she said, so sleeping on the couch every night didn’t seem like a hardship.

Rachel stared around the small apartment with her hands on her hips, assessing. “Can I make a suggestion?” Jason asked, not wanting to interrupt her train of thought.

“Sure.”

“Let’s do personal stuff first,” he said. “Clothes, toys, books, mementos.”

Rachel nodded thoughtfully. “Okay.”

“And don’t worry about making it neat or anything,” he insisted. “It’s just going to be the ride back to the diner, and then Phil will put it away.”

Rachel understood what he meant and pulled out the box of trash bags, inflating the first of many. Jason held it open for her while she dumped in armloads of her own and Emily’s clothes from the closet and bureau, hangers tossed aside lest they puncture the thin plastic. When they had two full bags he carried them down to the car and loaded them into the trunk, then hurried back upstairs to help her with the next set. They moved on to eleven-year-old Aaron’s wardrobe, then started filling bags with anything else soft—stuffed animals, pillows, sheets and blankets straight from the beds. Jason ran it all downstairs to the car, every bag making him more certain that she wasn’t going to change her mind and thus more gleeful.

Rachel was packing extra coats, boots, and shoes into a bag when he came back up. At least they _had_ winter coats and boots, she knew a lot of families that didn’t. “What should we do about toys and books?” she asked Jason.

“Garbage bags, I guess, if that’s all you’ve got,” he said cheerfully. In his mind it really didn’t matter, they were just containers for carrying a load to the car—they weren’t packing for a cross-country trip.

Rachel seemed uncomfortable with this idea, though. “Do you think you could go to the store and get some boxes?” she asked apologetically. “Do you think that would be too much?” Too much money, time, effort, she could mean any of those things.

The only one that worried Jason was time. As thrilled as he was to be starting this project, he would only truly relax once she and the kids were safely inside the diner. Maybe not even until they left town.

But he could see it would make her feel a lot better, so he smiled. “Sure, no problem,” he told her. “I’ll go get some boxes. Only just—“ He didn’t want to worry her when she knew the risks so well, but he felt he had to say it. “Only keep the door locked and your phone with you, and don’t let anyone in, okay?” By which he really meant Chuck, if the deadbeat managed to bestir himself during the day. Jason had a suspicion that one of their neighbors reported on Rachel’s movements, and seeing bags going out to the car would be worth calling Chuck about.

She seemed to understand his concern. “I’ll be careful,” she promised.

“Okay.” He took the bag of coats out and heard her lock the door behind him.

Once in the car he called Phil. “Where can I get boxes for packing?” he asked. “Don’t tell me we don’t need them, she wants them, so humor me.”

“ _There’s an office supply store on Tenth and Green_ ,” Phil reported, so Jason turned the car towards it. The magic car not only held everything he put in it, it also basically drove itself. Took the fun out of it kinda, but it was useful if you were trying to do something else at the same time, like talk on the phone.

“How’s the prep going?” Jason asked him.

“ _Fine_ ,” Phil assured him. “ _Three new bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. Is that what you had in mind?_ ”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Jason enthused. “The kids will _love_ having their own bathrooms… Can you make the bedrooms _big_?” he questioned.

Phil hesitated. “ _How big?_ ”

“Well, they’re pretty tiny right now, like eight by twelve, I think,” Jason described. “Seems like there’s barely room for the bed and a couple pieces of furniture. I just really want them to be better than that, so the kids don’t think they’re getting downgraded or anything.” _He_ knew the rooms would get nicer, and larger, over time, but that was hard to explain to a kid.

“ _I can promise they will be larger than that_ ,” Phil assured him. “ _I was planning to include a twin bed, nightstand, chest of drawers, desk and chair, and bookcase_.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Jason praised. “Have we got all those things?”

“ _We’ve collected quite a bit of furniture over the years_ ,” Phil replied dryly, “ _between what you’ve made and bought. Once they settle in they can look through the storeroom themselves. Or you can buy new things, of course_.”

“Phil, you are so awesome,” Jason told him genially.

“ _Thank you. We are currently lacking child-specific objects like clothes, toys, and books, though_ ,” Phil warned him.

“Well, they’re bringing some with them,” Jason reminded him, pulling into a parking space at the office supply store. “And I guarantee we’ll do some shopping at our next destination.”

“ _Oh, I was looking into it_ ,” Phil added quickly, “ _and the rules about how many people can leave at a time might change_.”

Jason did not understand where, exactly, he’d been ‘looking into it’ but knew asking was pointless. “What do you mean?” Right now, either he or Phil could leave the diner, but not both at the same time.

“ _We’ll have to test it once Rachel and the children travel with us_ ,” Phil replied vaguely. “ _All four of you might not be able to leave at once_.”

Well, _that_ would be a bummer. Jason had been indulging in fantasies about the four of them going to parks and aquariums, like a normal little family. “Well, we’ll test it,” he allowed. “I’m gonna get those boxes now.”

So all would not be perfect. Nothing was perfect, of course, but knowing about a specific (possible) downside put a slight damper on his enthusiasm. Which was probably a good thing really, as office supply stores tended to be dangerous places for him—the vast selection of blank paper and full pens, not to mention all the other creativity-assisting items, could be quite tempting. He tried to stay focused and went straight to the packing supplies aisle, picking up several packs of flattened boxes in various sizes and a couple rolls of bubble wrap and packing tape for good measure. Somehow a couple large boxes of crayons and a jar of pre-gummed foam shapes ended up in his cart, too, before he tore himself away to the checkout line. He had plenty of craft supplies the kids could use already. And there would also be time to buy more, just not right now.

Jason stowed his purchases in the car and called Rachel. “How’s it going?” he asked her.

“ _Oh, fine_.” She sounded subdued, which worried him. “ _I was trying to decide what to do while you were gone, and I ended up going through this old photo album_ …”

“I’m on my way back right now,” Jason told her, trying to cheer her up. “I’ve got lots of boxes, and bubble wrap, and we’re going to get everything packed up in no time. Then we’ll get the kids and go back to the diner, and I’ll make dinner for everyone.”

She seemed happier by the end of his speech. “ _Okay. Come back soon. Before I start cleaning_.”

Back at the brownstone minutes later Jason toted two packs of boxes, bubble wrap, and tape upstairs. He helped Rachel put a few of the boxes together, then ran the two new bags she’d managed to fill back down and brought more boxes up with him. He was definitely getting a workout this afternoon, but there was honestly nothing else he’d rather be doing.

Rachel was packing away toys when he came back up and directed him to collecting the books, which took much less arranging. The kids didn’t have many of either, anyway. A lot of baby-era toys that might normally still be hanging around had been lost in an abrupt move two apartments back; and the kids were getting to the age when toys were less of a priority anyway. There were a few Legos and blocks, some dolls and cars, a couple of board games—the majority of the toys, actually, were craft supplies, half-empty jars of beads, bent packages of pipe cleaners, crusty little tubs of poster paint, boxes of crayon stubs, floppy packs of construction paper. And of course all the artwork the kids had already done, which Rachel carefully treasured in folders and waterproof plastic boxes, an indulgence she only allowed for something so precious. With visible reluctance she let Jason take those out of sight to the car.

Rachel always encouraged reading, too, they just borrowed most of their books from the library to avoid both the cost of purchasing them _and_ the need to store them. She was very proud of an encyclopedia set she’d picked up cheap at a garage sale though, missing only one volume somewhere in the middle—since they didn’t have a computer the kids were familiar with the idea of looking things up in a book, which many of their peers likely found archaic.

“You know, the kids won’t be able to attend a regular school,” Jason remarked, as he tested how many books he could fit into a box and still carry it.

He heard Rachel pause momentarily in the other room. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted.

“We can teach them ourselves,” Jason encouraged. “It’ll be fun. They can learn about whatever they’re interested in.” When she didn’t respond he decided to carry a couple more boxes down to the car and paused to check in with her. “How’s it going?”

“Almost done in here,” she assured him in an upbeat tone, so he continued on with his task.

When he returned—the stairs seemed to be getting longer with every trip—he saw her dragging a plastic tub of spiral notebooks out of a closet. Those were Rachel’s writings; he recognized some of the more recent notebooks from when she’d worked on them at the diner. Rachel was a writer, a talented one from the little he’d read; but it was difficult for her to find time in between the kids and all the jobs she worked. Without a computer she was limited to pen and paper, which were cheap and portable but also bulky en masse and prone to loss and damage.

“Phil can type those up for you,” he mentioned.

Rachel looked up at him suddenly, as though she’d been thinking of something else. “Yeah, I’d like to have them typed,” she agreed. “I think I’d rather typed them myself almost, to reacquaint myself with some of them.” Jason nodded and grabbed a couple more boxes. “This is all fitting in the car?” Rachel asked dubiously and he grinned.

“Room for plenty more,” he assured her.

Once Rachel had cleaned out the kids’ rooms she moved on to the kitchen, wrapping dishes and pots in bubble wrap or towels before layering them in the boxes. The dishes were not precious, in either inherent or sentimental value, and the one thing Jason was certain he had plenty of at the diner was kitchen supplies. But he could see it was important to Rachel to bring them, to not leave things behind, so he helped as best he could.

“I think I would really enjoy homeschooling the kids,” Rachel said out of the blue as she rolled a glass up in a towel. “I’ve had a lot of ideas about that over the years, but it was just never feasible to do it.”

“Yeah, I was always bored with the work in school,” Jason reminisced, “but then I would go home and do a lot of work on something that I was interested in, just for fun. It would’ve been nice to get some credit for that, and to spend less time on the boring stuff.”

“I was a terrible student,” Rachel confessed. She said it with some amusement; but the admission surprised Jason, because she was so bright and hard-working. “I only focused on the social stuff, what to wear, doing stuff with my friends, gossiping. I know, terrible, right?” she added, laughing a little. “I guess maybe I was bored, too, because I liked to read and write when it _wasn’t_ a school assignment. My parents didn’t care much as long as I didn’t outright fail, they were more focused on my brothers.”

She managed to say this without bitterness; but considering that one brother, though successful, had completely divorced himself from his family, even Rachel, and the other was an aimless mooch living with their parents, Jason hoped that at least _someone_ realized that this hadn’t been the best system.

“Will there be a way to contact people?” Rachel wanted to know. “Like my parents, to tell them where I am?”

“Well, you can definitely call them,” Jason replied, thinking over the options as he packed up the silverware. “Or use text, email, Skype, I guess. I told you about the lawyers in Cleveland, right?” Rachel nodded. “We usually have mail sent to them, and then when we’re going to be someplace for a while they mail it all to that address. It’s just easier that way. Although nowadays, with places like Amazon doing reliable fast shipping, sometimes we can have stuff sent directly to us.”

The burgeoning electronic delivery of things like music, movies, and books had greatly enriched his life, Jason felt, since those services worked almost wherever they were. Though he still liked going out and buying real books sometimes. “I wouldn’t—“ He hesitated and Rachel glanced up at him. “I wouldn’t necessarily give out an exact address every time,” he cautioned. He no longer had many people to correspond with in the outside world, so he was out of touch with what was expected. “It would look weird, I guess. Let them send mail to Cleveland, cards or whatever.” They were not the card-sending types, he suspected. “Also, it’s possible someone could just decide to show up, if they know where we are.”

“They can’t get in, though, right?” Rachel checked apprehensively. She would not put it past her parents to give Chuck her new address if they knew it, even if she specifically asked them not to. They had never seen anything wrong with him.

“Right, they can’t,” Jason assured her. “But that’s good _and_ bad. We’re safe inside, but it’s hard to go out and enjoy the city if someone is outside watching the place. And it’s really awkward if you _want_ them to come in, and they can’t.”

Rachel did not understand all the rules about the diner and she knew Jason didn’t either; she appreciated his honesty on the subject. There were strict controls on who could enter that were not very clear, explaining why Jason had been so shocked when Rachel had wandered in one day. That was a big sign, to him, that there was something special about her.

“But we’re in this general area pretty often, about once every couple of years,” he went on. Well, that seemed often to _him_. “I mean, you can’t predict it, but when we do arrive here, you could go visit people.”

“Can you stay away from the diner overnight?” Rachel inquired.

“You can’t stay away more than eighteen hours,” he informed her. “That’s what Phil says, I’ve never put it to the test. So you could be gone overnight but it would be a pretty short trip otherwise. Oh, and today he told me there might be something weird about who could leave together,” he added with a frown. “I don’t know, we’ll have to test it after we move once.”

They finished packing all the kitchen stuff, the cleaning supplies, the toiletries. Every cabinet and drawer hung open as a way to double-check that nothing was overlooked. The meager appliances Rachel owned were laid in the trunk as well, the vacuum cleaner banging into Jason’s shins all the way down the stairs. They did not need a vacuum cleaner. The floors did not really get dirty, unless Jason spilled something on them, and then Phil managed to clean it up somehow out of sight. But whatever, they had plenty of room, the vacuum cleaner would do no harm. Jason remembered that people sometimes made things, like hovercrafts, with their motors, so perhaps one day it would serve that kind of purpose instead.

Last of all they went through the fridge, throwing out some things and preparing to pack up the rest at the last minute. Dry goods had already gone down to the car, of course.

The food situation in the diner was an odd one, one of those things Jason had not spent much time thinking about until Rachel had asked. He never worried about running out of food, it was just always there. Not unlimited variety, certainly, but whenever he went for the basics, or even not-so-basics that he used a lot, he found plenty at hand and in good condition. He honestly didn’t know if Phil was constantly replenishing the stocks from his trips away from the diner, or if there was some kind of magical preservation/replication going on.

Vaguely, he suspected the latter, since the supplies had never waned even when they were stuck inside due to inclement conditions. So Rachel’s contributions of canned soup and macaroni could probably have been left behind, too.

And then they were done.

The apartment looked like Whoville after the Grinch had cleaned it out on Christmas Eve, although less messy. Rachel sat back on the couch with a sigh, opening a can of soda and looking around in wonder. “I can’t believe we moved everything!”

“I can,” Jason said melodramatically, rubbing his calf.

Rachel laughed a little at him. “Thanks for carrying everything down to the car,” she replied. “I would’ve helped you.”

“I know,” he agreed, not really upset. “It was better you stayed here and packed. I wouldn’t want you to feel like I—coerced you or anything.”

She smiled and put her hand on his arm. “You didn’t,” she promised. “I really… I don’t know. Part of me can’t believe this is really happening.”

“What’s the other part?” he asked playfully.

“The part with a sore back from sitting on the floor,” she told him dryly.

“We should soak in the hot tub tonight,” Jason tempted.

“You have a hot tub?”

“Naturally,” he assured her. “And a swimming pool.”

Rachel shook her head. “That’s really crazy.” But she had seen it herself, some of it anyway—the endless rooms that shouldn’t fit into that building, or appeared and disappeared behind a door. Maybe that could be explained away by someone skeptical; but there was also the _feeling_ she got from Jason, the decency and sincerity and _sanity_. Of course her track record at trusting her instincts wasn’t so great. And she _had_ thought he was involved with Phil. Well, not so much _thought_ as realized it was possible and figured that with _her_ luck, it was likely, so she shouldn’t get her hopes up.

“You will really like it, I promise,” Jason told her eagerly. “Um, it _is_ a little industrial, like I said before. But we can change the style if you don’t like it. But there’s lots of different rooms already, lots of things to do, and when we go to a new city, we can go out to museums and parks and concerts, whatever we want. At least, I hope so,” he added with a frown. “Anyway, we don’t have to worry about food or money, and I don’t really get sick very often and my injuries heal quickly—“

“Yeah, you’re an old dude,” Rachel teased him, and he smirked. He’d been at the diner since the mid-seventies and had only aged about ten years, if that. She frowned suddenly. “I wonder how that will affect the kids.”

“Hmm, good question,” Jason admitted. “We’ll definitely ask Phil about that. Say, what time is it? The kids should be home soon.”

Rachel tensed and sat up on the couch. “Maybe we should meet them downstairs,” she worried. “Warn them about what’s happening… It might upset them to walk in here and see the apartment so bare, without being told.”

“Okay, sure,” Jason agreed. They locked up the apartment and went downstairs to sit on the steps of the brownstone.

“You _really_ fit everything in the car?” Rachel asked once more, skeptically. It didn’t look any different than when she’d ridden in it.

“It’s all in the trunk, I promise,” Jason insisted. He opened it for her, showing her the boxes and bags, with space for a little more. It looked perfectly normal. “Go on, ask me to find something,” he suggested.

“One of the bags of stuffed animals,” Rachel said immediately. Jason reached in and grabbed the first bag he saw, knowing it would be the right one. It was. “Emily’s artwork?” Tucked flat on the side. “The cleaning supplies from the kitchen.” The first box that came to hand.

“Satisfied?” Jason asked. He was pleased to be able to prove it to her, because he knew the whole story was crazy.

“Wow,” Rachel concluded, shaking her head. She hadn’t _really_ doubted him but it was impressive to see. “Oh, there’s the bus,” she added with some excitement, seeing it stop at the end of the block. Several children got off and scattered in various directions, with two of them heading towards them.

The kids recognized him right away. “Hi, Jason!” Emily chirped. “Are you gonna take us out to dinner?”

He laughed and gave her a hug. “No, I’m gonna take you _in_ to dinner,” he corrected. Aaron was a little more reserved and just gave him a high-five. “Hey there, champ.”

“Hi.”

“Kids, I have something to tell you,” Rachel began, drawing them over to the stairs so she could sit at eye level. Aaron tensed; at eleven he had seen and remembered more unpleasant things that began this way than Emily had. “It’s good news,” Rachel insisted. “We are going to move in with Jason!” She said this in a bright tone and waited for their reaction.

“At the diner?” Aaron asked dubiously.

“There’s rooms at the back,” Jason jumped in.

“You’ve been in them before,” Rachel reminded them. “The art room, with the big table and all the craft supplies?”

“That was fun,” Emily remembered.

“You’ll each have your own bedroom,” Jason promised, “and you own bathroom.”

This seemed to please Emily. Aaron was a tougher sell. “Will we have to change schools again?” he wanted to know.

“I don’t want to change schools!” Emily protested in sudden distress. “All my friends are in my class!”

Rachel had known the change wouldn’t be easy for them. “Yes, you’ll have to leave your school,” she told them firmly. “I’m going to teach you at home.”

Emily started to cry—she had a tendency to be a little dramatic—and Jason hugged her, feeling awful. “I’m sorry, honey,” he told her. “But we’re going to be traveling a lot, so you can’t go to a regular school. Your mom and I are really gonna make it fun, though,” he insisted desperately.

“Is this because of Dad?” Aaron wanted to know. He was not blind to his mother’s injuries, and of course they upset him; but the situation overall confused him and he didn’t know how he felt about it. His father could be a great guy sometimes. And, he was his father. “Is he—mad?”

Rachel hugged him, sad that he had to think about things like this at his age. “It’s partly about your father,” she agreed honestly. “He gets very angry sometimes, and I don’t like you to be around that. And it’s partly about Jason,” she added in a lighter tone, smiling at him. “I would like us to spend more time with Jason. You like going to the diner, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Aaron agreed readily. “How are we going to travel, though? Or are we going to stay at the diner?”

“I’ll explain when we get there,” Jason deferred, certain the boy was going to be quite skeptical about the story. There was no disbeliever like an aging child.

“We’re already packed up everything from the apartment!” Rachel went on, putting enthusiasm in her tone. “It looks so empty now!”

“Did you get my Barbies?” Emily wanted to know, calming down somewhat.

“Of course!” Jason promised her. “And I’m gonna get you some _new_ Barbies, too.” Emily was easily bribed into a smile with this.

“I think it will be a lot better,” Rachel told Aaron simply. “That’s what I always try to do, to find someplace better.”

“I know, Mom,” he agreed, hugging her again.

She pulled back before she could get teary-eyed. “Okay! Well, let’s go upstairs and get the last stuff.”

The kids were suitably impressed with the barrenness of the apartment and made a thorough search of all nooks and crannies themselves, coming up with only a few bits that Rachel would’ve been happy to leave behind, like an old sock from under the bed.

They packed up the food, then unplugged the fridge and left it open so it wouldn’t grow mold before someone could check on it. Rachel couldn’t remember what else she ought to do, but she planned to call the landlord tomorrow to let him know the place was empty. She left next month’s rent on the counter also, feeling slightly guilty about her sudden abandonment of the place. It really hadn’t been a bad apartment at all. And hopefully, between her security deposit and the extra cash, they would get it cleaned up and rented to someone else right away, Jason reminded her.

They locked the door for the last time and Rachel put the keys in an envelope and mailed them to the landlord—she didn’t want to deal with dropping them off in person. Now that they were so close to the end—or the beginning—she started to not care about all the little details, and to be increasingly anxious that Chuck or even her parents were going to show up suddenly.

Jason put the box of food in the trunk as the kids climbed into the backseat with their bookbags, Rachel watching like a hawk for any sign of trouble. Technically, Jason thought Emily was supposed to be in a booster seat of some kind, which he _did_ have, but he didn’t think Rachel could stand the amount of time it would take to install it. And honestly, Emily was in no danger—magic car, of course.

Finally they started driving. Rachel’s tension spread to Jason, though he aggressively tried to give off a casual vibe, humming and tapping his hands on the steering wheel. “How about we make a pizza for dinner?” he suggested to the kids. “What’s your favorite topping?”

“Mushrooms!” Emily answered.

“Pepperoni,” Aaron replied.

Jason glanced at Rachel. “Black olives,” she told him.

“But not all three together,” Emily denied.

Jason grinned. “Looks like we’ll be dividing this pizza into quarters, then.” He liked sausage and green peppers himself.

“Can we have ice cream sundaes for dessert?” Emily wanted to know.

Jason deferred to Rachel on that. “Maybe _small_ ones,” she allowed. “If you eat your dinner first.”

Jason turned on to the block with the diner, its neon sign lighting up the gathering gloom. The sky was getting cloudy; rain had been predicted. He turned the car onto the side street, then into the garage as the door rose. A moment later it shut behind them, leaving them in the dim light.

They had made it.

Jason let out a long breath, not realizing he’d been holding it. Rachel took his hand and squeezed it, smiling at him. “Okay,” he finally said. “We’re home!” No one moved, so he ramped his energy back up and popped out of the car. “Alright, out we go,” he encouraged, opening one of the car’s back doors for the kids. “No need to hang out in the garage all night.” Emily and Aaron crawled out as Rachel came around from the other side.

Jason opened the door to the interior and Phil stood there waiting for them, with a smile. There was no reason he couldn’t come into the garage, of course, it just wasn’t necessary. “Hello, welcome home,” he greeted. “Rachel, nice to see you again.”

“Thank you, Phil,” she told him. “You, too. Kids, you remember Phil, don’t you?”

“Hi, Phil!”

“Hi.”

“I’m very glad you could join us here,” Phil told the children. “Would you like to see your rooms now?”

The first one was right next to the garage, at least from the perspective of the hallway; looking at the placement of the door it seemed like it ought to open right into the garage as well. “This is Aaron’s room,” Phil explained, indicating the little sign he’d put on the door.

“Hey, that’s nice,” Jason complimented.

“I thought it might help with navigation,” Phil explained modestly. Jason was used to opening multiple doors looking for the room he wanted, as they tended to move around; but several people doing that all day would be chaos.

Phil opened the marked door to Aaron’s bedroom, then stepped over and opened the next one, which was labeled for Emily. As he’d told Jason earlier, they each had a twin bed, nightstand, chest of drawers, desk and chair, and a bookcase, as well as their own bathroom and closet. Though not palatial the rooms fit all their furniture comfortably, and Phil had tried to choose complimentary pieces from their eclectic collection. Jason liked good design and fine workmanship, but not necessarily a single style.

The kids seemed enthusiastic, opening all the doors and running from bed to bookcase and back again. “And we brought all your stuff, remember, so Phil can get your rooms all set up while we have dinner,” Jason offered.

“Oh, absolutely,” Phil agreed.

“Hey, guess what, I made this desk,” Jason told Aaron, running his hand over the basic, schoolteacher-type desk in the corner.

“Wow, really?” the boy responded, impressed.

“Yeah, look on the underside, do you see my initials?”

Aaron dropped down to the floor and craned his neck up as only a flexible child could. “J.W.,” he read.

“That’s me,” Jason assured him. “And I made _your_ bookcase,” he told Emily. It was slightly more ambitious, with some scrollwork around the top and bottom. He’d only gotten into furniture crafting a few years ago and many of his early efforts, though usable, were not really impressive enough to gift someone with.

“Where’s Mom’s room?” Aaron wanted to know, so Phil pointed to the next door, which was marked with Rachel’s name.

This one was larger than what the kids had—a queen-sized bed, two nightstands, a chest of drawers with a mirror above it, a desk with a padded chair, and an overstuffed chair next to the bookcase. There was also a walk-in closet, and the bathroom had a whirlpool tub and separate shower stall.

“Wow, Phil, you’ve really outdone yourself,” Jason praised. “This is really—“ Rachel, who’d been standing in the center of the room trying to take it all in, suddenly turned her back on them with her hand pressed over her mouth.

“Mom? Are you okay?” Aaron worried. She nodded quickly but didn’t face them.

“Hey, kids,” Jason swooped in brightly, “let’s go start working on that pizza for dinner, and let your mom settle in, okay?” He swept them through another door into the diner proper.

Rachel sank down onto the overstuffed chair gingerly. “Are you alright?” Phil checked.

She nodded again, brushing some tears from her eyes. “It’s just overwhelming,” she finally said. “I never imagined… It’s really nice. Thank you, Phil.”

He smiled. “It’s my pleasure. I’ll start bringing things in from the car now.”

Rachel jumped up. “Oh, let me help you.”

“No, that’s alright.”

Rachel was not deterred. “Well, if you bring them in, I’ll start putting them away.”

Phil was about to object again, then realized it was better for _her_ to help in some way. “Alright,” he agreed. “Maybe you can separate some things, decide whose room they should go in.” Phil could always guess, of course, but this would be an easy way for her to contribute.

He disappeared to the garage and returned a moment later carrying several trash bags, as though they were filled with nothing more than cotton fluff. Rachel’s eyes widened but he figured it was better she get used to what he could do, if she was going to be living here. He set the bags down in Emily’s room. “Is this alright?” he asked Rachel. “If you can sort things for me I can put them away.”

“Sure, that’s great,” she agreed, settling down on the floor in the midst of the bags. Phil went off to unpack other items with clearer destinations, like the dishes, while Rachel opened the bags and pulled out all the soft objects she’d so recently tossed in there. She made piles separating Emily’s belongings from Aaron’s, with a third pile of stuff that went into her own room, then busied herself carefully hanging up Emily’s clothes or folding them and tucking them in drawers.

Phil came in bearing several boxes. “Here’s some books and toys I wasn’t sure about,” he told her, setting them on the floor. “Can I move Aaron’s things into his room?”

“Um, sure, if you put them in his room I can put them away,” she compromised. “Oh, have you come across their art projects yet? Have you seen a box of notebooks?”

She seemed a little anxious about these items so Phil hastened to reassure her. “I put the box of spiral notebooks in your room,” he replied, “and I’ll bring the kids’ art projects in next, I just saw them. Can I put these things in your room?” he added, indicating the pile of her clothes.

“Yes, thanks,” Rachel agreed. “Do you happen to have any more hangers?”

“I’ll bring you some,” Phil promised. Despite the growing list of tasks he stood in the doorway patiently, never giving the impression he was in a hurry to get going. “Do you have any queen-sized sheets or blankets you want me to put on your bed?”

“Oh. No,” Rachel admitted. “There’s a couple of blankets I was using, but the biggest sheets are full-sized.” At one time, they’d actually had a queen-sized bed, but not most recently.

“No problem,” Phil insisted. “We have some bedding that will fit. I’ll make the beds.” He gathered up Aaron’s clothing and left as he said this, before she could object.

Rachel sorted the toys and books, finding that most were fairly easy to decide on, and the ones that weren’t, she just put in her _own_ room. She arranged Emily’s items on her bookcase—there were not enough to warrant additional storage options—then went into Aaron’s room to put away his clothes. The bed was nicely made with fresh blue sheets and the worn nautical-themed bedspread Rachel had patched many times over the years. There was also a blue plaid blanket draped over the foot of the bed that she didn’t recognize, so it must have come from Jason’s stock. He liked to buy things, he said; boredom was sometimes a problem, or maybe loneliness, and it was fun to dig out things he’d bought earlier and switch out the furnishings he’d grown tired of. Storage space was _not_ a problem, it seemed.

Rachel stepped into Aaron’s bathroom, not having gotten a good look before, and saw that Phil had laid out fresh toiletries alongside Aaron’s own, partially used ones, where applicable. The boy had always shared things like shampoo and toothpaste with someone else, but now he had his own. There were also towels and washcloths on the storage rack, some that Rachel had obtained and some that were new to her.

With Aaron’s room in order she ducked back into Emily’s and saw that Phil had made the girl’s bed, too, and stocked her bathroom similarly. He was quite fast at those things—but Rachel suspected he didn’t exactly have the same human limitations she did.

Phil appeared in the doorway again. “I put the art project boxes under their beds,” he noted. “Jason was hoping to go through them soon and find ways to display some of them.”

“Oh, that would be really nice,” Rachel agreed. She noticed that the clothes she’d left out in Emily’s room, due to lack of hangers, had now been hung up. “Thanks for making the beds and putting things away,” she told Phil, feeling that this was inadequate appreciation for all he and Jason had done for her.

“I’m happy you’re here,” he explained, in his mild way. “And the kids. It’s good for Jason. Anytime you need something, just let me know.” She nodded. “They’re almost done making dinner,” he added. “I can put your clothes away, if that’s alright.”

Rachel was not terribly picky about how her clothes were arranged, especially considering that she had an actual closet and drawers for them now. And since he’d mentioned dinner, her stomach was beginning to growl. “Okay. Thank you, that would be great,” she allowed, and he smiled like she’d done _him_ a favor.

Rachel stepped out into the hall and took a moment to look around. It was, indeed, a little “industrial,” as Jason had warned—cinder block walls, concrete floor, steel doors. But the lighting was warm, and the wooden furniture in the bedrooms, too. Maybe she would be able to find some little rugs for the bedroom floors, although she didn’t notice it being uncomfortably cool. If Jason wanted to display the kids’ artwork, maybe they could hang some on the walls out here—he had a few of his own drawings up, or paintings and posters he’d purchased.

There was no point in thinking about how the building was constructed—one side of the long hallway was all doors, the other almost all wall. At least today; Rachel thought she remembered seeing doors on both sides of the hallway before. This could all be very confusing, but hopefully they would get used to it. But for right now, she headed for the door in the opposite wall that she knew would lead to the diner portion of the building.

It was a small restaurant, with booths at the back and along one side, and the counter with its round stools and the kitchen equipment on the other. The only color was the aqua of the booths, stool tops, and counter; the rest was white or gleaming chrome. Jason said it had been a real working diner once, open to the public, that he ran unsuccessfully. Now the big floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the city street were permanently draped in wooden blinds and the neon ‘Open’ sign was always dark. It was just awkward when someone tried to come in, thinking it was a viable restaurant, especially if they could see Jason standing there cooking.

He was tending to something at the oven now, the smell making Rachel’s mouth water as she approached. The kids sat eagerly on stools, leaning forward over the counter to dip bread in olive oil and parmesan cheese.

“Wow, that smells _so good_ ,” Rachel enthused, coming up behind them. She rested one arm over each child and pulled them close for a moment, grateful to be together and safe. “Did you save any for me?”

Aaron scooted over to let her sit in between them. “You have to eat your vegetables first, Mommy,” Emily told her with prim satisfaction.

“Oh, I do, huh,” Rachel remarked with a smile. “What vegetables? I don’t see any vegetables!”

“One house salad with Italian dressing coming up,” Jason announced, setting a small bowl of greens before Rachel. “Otherwise the meal leans heavily towards carbs and cheese.”

Rachel ate her salad. “The rooms are really great,” she told Jason. “We have almost everything put away already.”

“Well, the next place we go, we can do some shopping,” he promised her. “New furniture, clothes, whatever you want. And you can order whatever you want online, too. Not you two,” he added sternly to Emily and Aaron. “Phil knows how to _monitor_ what you do online.” He gave Rachel a plate for her olive oil and cheese, then leaned over the counter from the other side to eat his own. “So, we have a delicious homemade pizza cooking,” he described to her, “with separate quarters for mushrooms, pepperoni, black olives, and sausage and green peppers.”

“I put the black olives in a smiley face for you!” Emily announced.

“Aw, thank you,” Rachel told her.

“ _And_ we have some cheesy garlic bread,” Jason added. He wasn’t kidding about the preponderance of cheese and bread. “And then after dinner, if you have room, there _might_ be ice cream sundaes,” he teased the kids. “But if you don’t have room, that’s okay, we’ll have them later. Oh, maybe we could watch a movie after dinner.”

“I haven’t done my homework yet,” Aaron worried.

Rachel smoothed his hair back. “You don’t have to do your homework,” she assured him. “Remember, I’m going to teach you at home, here.”

“You said we were going to travel a lot,” Aaron persisted. “Where are we going?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Jason admitted, pulling the pizza and bread from the oven. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“You said that before,” Aaron pointed out. “You said you’d explain.” His tone wasn’t _challenging_ , just determined. He wanted to know what was going to happen to them, now that they’d thrown their lot in with someone they’d only known a few weeks—not unreasonable, really.

“I _did_ say that,” Jason agreed, slicing the pizza up. “Well, here’s the thing.” He turned around to distribute the pizza. “You see that clock right there?” He indicated the large digital display above the front door, which currently showed one day, eighteen hours, and an ever-decreasing number of minutes and seconds. “That clock is counting down how much time we have left in this city. Around noon on Thursday, it will run out.”

“What happens when it runs out?” Emily wanted to know.

Jason came around the end of the counter to sit by her and eat his dinner. “Well, what happens is, it gets very dark outside the windows, like it’s nighttime, only it keeps getting darker until you can’t see anything at all.” He tried to say this matter-of-factly, not dramatically, so as not to scare her. “And then—the city isn’t there anymore.”

“Where does it go?” Aaron asked skeptically.

“Oh, the city doesn’t go anywhere,” Jason assured him. “ _We’re_ the ones that leave—all of us, you, me, Phil. And this diner, and your rooms and the art room and the garage and everything. If someone comes to this spot next week, they won’t see the diner here. They’ll just see an old, abandoned storefront.”

Aaron’s frown deepened throughout this explanation and Rachel ate her food quietly, letting Jason handle it. She was proud of her son’s inquisitiveness and self-awareness, and Jason’s answers were interesting to her, too. “Then where will _we_ be?” Aaron asked.

“Well,” Jason went on philosophically as he ate his pizza, “we’ll be nowhere for a while. It will be dark outside the windows and we won’t be able to go outside. Also the Internet and cable won’t work,” he added in annoyance. “That’ll last for about a week, usually. Then, we’ll look out the window and see another city out there, a different city. But we won’t know which one until we get there. Then, we can go outside again, look around, buy stuff, whatever. And that digital clock will tell us how much time we have before we leave again. It’s usually about a month.”

Silence met this calm, unsensational explanation. Rachel could see the kids struggling to process it, each in their own way. Aaron was definitely having a bigger problem with the logic of it.

“When we’re _nowhere_ ,” Emily asked, “is it like when Dorothy’s house is picked up by the tornado?”

“No, it’s very safe,” Jason assured her. That part of the movie had always scared her. “You won’t even notice anything is different, unless you’re in here looking out the window. It’s very quiet.”

“But how can—“ Aaron sputtered a little bit. “How does that _work_? Don’t people _notice_?”

“Sometimes people are surprised to see the diner when they’re used to it being an abandoned storefront,” Jason agreed. “And then when people get used to it being here, they probably notice when it goes away again. But it really doesn’t matter, because we’re safe in here. People can’t come in.”

“They can’t?” repeated Emily. “How did _we_ get in?”

Jason smiled at her. “You guys are special, I guess.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Aaron decided. He turned to Rachel. “Mom?”

She shrugged a little bit. “Well, I guess we’ll find out on Thursday,” she pointed out.

“But it’s not _true_ , right?” he persisted. “It can’t be _true_. It’s just a joke, right?”

He kept staring at Rachel expectantly. “I’ve never seen it happen,” she reminded him, as though he shouldn’t be asking _her_. “Jason’s the expert on it.”

“Actually, _Phil’s_ the expert on it,” Jason corrected good-naturedly. Aaron sighed as though this was yet another indignity to put up with from adults, an elaborate nonsensical prank, and Emily looked uncertain.

Rachel put her arms around both of them again. “Well wherever we end up, we’ll be together,” she promised them, which seemed to help. They had been in a lot of situations they didn’t understand before.

After eating their meals they still somehow had room for dessert, so Jason fixed _small_ hot fudge sundaes. Then they went into the theater to watch a movie— _Star Wars_ was the chosen flick. The theater had overstuffed recliners and loveseats facing a huge screen on the wall that the movie was projected on from the DVD—the kids had been in once before but it was still impressive to them, and Rachel too for that matter. She sat on one of the little couches with Jason and leaned against his shoulder when he slid his arm around her, concentrating less on the movie than on getting comfortable around each other.

When the movie ended Rachel sprang back into Mom mode, guiding the kids back to their rooms. They were both pleased to see the beds made and all their clothes and toys in place, just as if they’d always been there (though considerably neater at the moment). Rachel got them started on their baths before they could get distracted.

At that point Phil reappeared and signaled to Jason, drawing him off to his bedroom. “It’s going well, don’t you think?” Jason asked him eagerly. “You got everything from the car? I know, she brought a ton of redundant stuff, but she wanted to clear the place out.”

“It’s fine, we have room,” Phil demurred. “I wanted to let you know, I’m planning to go out tonight, after everyone’s asleep, and get some more supplies. Walmart’s open twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, that would be great, we have to stock up for the gap,” Jason agreed. That was the time when they were ‘nowhere,’ and couldn’t replenish their stocks from outside.

“That was a nice explanation, by the way,” Phil complimented him.

“I practiced it a lot.”

Phil smirked slightly at that, then moved on. “We don’t have much in the way of bedding for queen or twin mattresses,” he pointed out, “so I thought I would pick up some basics for the time being.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Jason encouraged. “Hey, could you get some other stuff for the kids? Some books and DVDs, for example. You know, I don’t have a lot of kids’ stuff.”

Phil blinked slightly; the expression was subtle but Jason knew the other man didn’t like to be asked for _vague_ things. Phil used his own good judgment plenty of times, but there were limits. “Which books and DVDs?” he asked, predictably.

Jason tried to remember it would only be a week or so, and then he and the kids could choose things themselves. “ _Harry Potter_ books, _Chronicles of Narnia_ books,” he began to list, mind scrambling. “Matching movies. All Disney or Pixar movies. Um, _Little House on the Prairie_ book series.” Phil did not need to write this down and merely waited patiently as Jason struggled to come up with more. Finally he pulled out his iPhone and summoned Amazon’s webpage. “I’m cheating,” he announced dryly.

“I understand,” Phil assured him. “This is new territory.”

“Books. _Diary of a Wimpy Kid_ series, _Magic Tree House_ series, Dr. Seuss—that seems a little young,” Jason frowned. “Whatever. _Boxcar Children_ series. _Charlotte’s Web_ —“

“They have that one already,” Phi pointed out politely.

“Other books by E.B. White,” Jason countered. “ _Guinness Book of World Records_ , kids like that stuff. Uh, reference books by DK, the big hardcover ones with lots of pictures, I think Aaron has one on robots—“

“Yes,” Phil agreed.

“ _Percy Jackson_ series, other books by Rick Riordan, _American Girl_ books, _Artemis Fowl_ series, _Anne of Green Gables_ , books by Beverly Cleary, books by Roald Dahl—“ Jason looked up to see Phil still waiting with his unnerving, unhurried stillness. “You don’t have to get _all_ of these,” he allowed. “I’m just giving you options. I don’t know what kind of stuff Walmart carries.”

“I understand. I appreciate the effort.”

“You could probably just go to the kids’ book section and sweep an armload into the cart,” Jason described. He’d never been shopping with Phil before, since they both couldn’t leave the diner at the same time, but sometimes he imagined that’s what he did when Jason wasn’t specific enough. Judging from the results, anyway.

“Probably no need for that,” Phil claimed.

“DVDs,” Jason went on. “Or Blu-ray, which is preferred. Hmm, _Schoolhouse Rock_ , _Magic School Bus_ , _Land Before Time_ , _Charlie Brown_ —oh, I love those, there’s a whole series about different holidays—uh, Disney—“

“You mentioned that already,” Phil pointed out thoughtfully.

“— _Scooby-Doo_ , _Looney Tunes_ , most musicals are probably okay, old ones I mean, _SpongeBob SquarePants_ , Muppets… Actually, that about covers the top one hundred children’s DVDs,” Jason concluded dryly. “Looks like we’re gonna be watching a lot of Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob. Ask for those if you can’t find them,” he challenged, amused at the idea of Phil doing so.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he assured Jason. “Anything else?”

“Well, talk to Rachel before you go,” he decided. “In case she knows of any kid stuff she needs. Or girl stuff,” he added after a moment.

Phil couldn’t resist. “Girl stuff?” he inquired curiously.

“You know what I mean,” Jason accused, then went on, “Or maybe you don’t, and _I_ don’t, either. Which is why you should ask Rachel.” He was proud of himself for parrying that one. “I wonder if they need more clothes,” he speculated, and he saw that look come over Phil’s face again. “Well, you could just get generic clothes,” Jason pointed out. “Plain, basic—you know what size they are.” Or rather, Phil knew what sizes of clothing they already had.

“I’ll ask Rachel,” he demurred. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, Legos and Barbies.” Phil blinked at him. “Don’t freak, this will be easy,” Jason assured him, although Phil was not and had never freaked. “You know what toys they brought with them. So just don’t get those.” That seemed simple enough. “Get a couple of big, expensive toys, a couple of medium-sized ones, and a couple of small ones. Legos and Barbies. Very common. They’ll love it.”

“Anything else?” Phil persisted, as though sorry he had to ask.

“You’re getting more food and toothpaste and stuff?” Jason checked.

“That was my original intent, yes.”

Jason nodded slowly. “You’ll be okay if you go out, right?” he asked. “I mean, Chuck hasn’t called Rachel or anything this evening, that’s kind of weird. Are you sure he’s not sitting out there with a shotgun?”

Phil smiled slightly, which Jason found reassuring. “Rachel turned her cell phone off during dinner,” he informed the other man, who had missed that. “Surveillance indicates no sign of Chuck or anyone else suspicious. And in any case I would be fine, though I recommend the rest of you stay indoors at all times,” he added sternly.

“Right, that’s the plan,” Jason agreed. “Okay, then. Thanks a lot, Phil.”

They both stepped out of Jason’s room and saw Rachel there in the hall. “Oh, there you are,” she commented, as if she’d been looking for them. “The kids are taking their baths… Oh, should I have had them take turns?” she asked quickly. “I didn’t think—they won’t take very long—“

“It’s not a problem,” Phil assured her. “There’s plenty of hot water.” He glanced at Jason, who gestured for him to go ahead. “I’m going out to get supplies later. Can we talk about what you might need?”

“Uh, sure,” Rachel agreed, and they stepped into her room. There wasn’t anything especially confidential about it, Jason supposed, but Phil liked being discreet; it wasn’t ‘classy’ to converse in the hallway, or something.

Suddenly alone, Jason wasn’t sure what to do with himself—an odd feeling, certainly, as for a very long time he had more or less managed to keep himself occupied alone. Well, Phil was there, too; but Phil, while very helpful, wasn’t exactly the best conversationalist. He was a good listener, if Jason felt like talking, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t contribute much on his own.

After turning listlessly around the hallway for a moment, Jason went into the diner portion again, the lights automatically coming on for him. Phil had already cleaned up from dinner, and put Rachel’s kitchen contributions away neatly. Sometimes Jason just liked to come in here and think, because it was the part that looked the most like it had originally, decades ago, when he looked on the diner as a dead end, a trap that would suck him in when he so very much wanted to do something else.

But _what_ , that was always the question for him. He wanted to play music and read and watch movies and try his hand at other artistic endeavors—not to make money, just for his own enjoyment, for the satisfaction of _making_ things and _knowing_ things. And there wasn’t much of a career in that, as everyone continually reminded him.

But, it turned out he _could_ make a living doing those things he loved, with Phil’s help—though he recognized his situation was quite unusual.

Jason turned the lights back off and raised one set of blinds, standing at the window in the dark and staring out at the street. Cars raced by, splashing puddles from the rain that had finally fallen while they were watching the movie. Most of the buildings were dark on the first floor, except for a couple of restaurants; but lights blazed on the upper floors, from apartment windows. Jason wondered what people saw when they looked at _his_ building—were the windows above him always dark? In his magical traveling home there were no upper or lower floors, just the endless hallway of doors.

Well, he could have it however he wanted, according to Phil; but the minimalist approach had always been fine with him. Maybe the kids would like something a little homier, though—warm rooms of wood and carpet blending into each other, perhaps with their bedrooms upstairs and a big basement playroom? He would talk to Rachel about it, once they got settled.

Usually he wanted to spend as long as possible in each city, squeezing every last minute from the visit shopping, dining out, lingering in a museum or club or park. But this time he felt anxious to leave, irrationally fearing that Rachel would suddenly change her mind. He didn’t think he could handle that, honestly. Loneliness had been a part of his life for so long that suddenly sharing his space with three other people was a scary prospect—but so was the idea of them leaving him alone in this endless, empty structure again.


End file.
